Cardboard Solar Cooker Wins Climate Challenge Contest

Upon conclusion of the Financial Times and HP Climate Challenge contest, the winner of the $75,000 prize was announced to be a simple cooking tool that uses the power of the sun. Christened Kyoto Box, it utilizes very basic, widely-available materials such as a couple of cardboard boxes. Kyoto Box was made by inventor Jon Bohmer, who's currently based in Kenya. One cardboard box placed in the interior of the setup is painted black to absorb and retain heat, while the exterior box is covered in aluminum foil to help reflect sunlight. Due to the nature of the setup, transparent covers are used on the cooking pots and pans.

In really poor rural areas in developing countries where using firewood for cooking goes beyond the few days of camping many of us are used to, something that costs $5 a pop and can be used for a period of time is highly-desirable. Although its usefulness can be seen upon first glance, how it won the contest is a bit mind-boggling according to Fast Company, seeing as similar cooking devices have existed in the past, many in DIY form. One reason I could think of is that, as organizer Forum for the Future (a charity for sustainable development) puts it, the challenge is for products that have already "moved off the drawing board and demonstrated their feasibility." And indeed, a working factory in Nairobi, Kenya is capable of manufacturing 2.5 million Kyoto Boxes a month, thereby demonstrating the viability of mass producing the device.

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